At the Sight of the Apocalypse Dragon

I wonder how many of you will remember Swedish band called Midvinter. Formed around mid 90's, they recorded one album only, "At the Sight of the Apocalypse Dragon" in 1997, got a tiny bit of attention, but nothing more happened to them, really. Midvinter were just another mediocre Scandinavian black metal band, which tried to jump on the trend for melodic, a bit symphonic black metal. And just like many similar bands, they soon disappeared from the scene. Few remember them nowadays. I do. And I still listen to them sometimes. Surprisingly, the album defends itself pretty well nowadays.

Nowadays, when I listen to "At the Sight of the Apocalypse Dragon" I can admit that there was some potential behind Midvinter. They definitely knew how to play their instruments; this album is filled with quite a solid dose of great music and Midvinter had enough ideas to win my support. I'm almost surprised how good it feels to listen to this album nowadays, how memorable, but well played and composed it is. In the field of melodic black metal there aren’t many bad things you could accuse Midvinter for. Their songs are a good mixture of melodic riffs, aggressive and fast parts, symphonic, epic black metal and the balance between all these styles is very good. There's a lot of dynamics in this music, a lot is going on and with one memorable riff after another, with one hooky part after another, it becomes an easily listenable and enjoyable album from the beginning. Imagine a good mixture of Swedish melodic black metal in the vein of Dissection, Sacramentum, Vinterland, Throne of Ahaz, Mork Gryning or Gates of Ishtar (“Dödfödd”) with Norwegian symphonic black metal from bands like Old Man's Child, early Dimmu Borgir and Odium (“Moonbound”)... This is pretty much how I would describe "At the Sight of the Apocalypse Dragon". And it's not bad at all.

If there was anything what I would really say against this album, then it's a bit too long. 63 minutes is just too much for me and with most of the songs extended to crazy 9 minutes, the music becomes a bit dull and repetitive. Apart from some very distinctive fragments, like for instance those, when Midvinter uses clean vocals, everything is based upon similar patterns and type of riffs. Which is OK, but with 63 minutes on the clock I do have problems how can I distinguish one song from another. There are few parts or ideas, which I don't like so much, especially when Midvinter music becomes a tiny bit too sugary sweet melodic for me or with the way they used keyboards. But the general idea to combine melodic riff as a base, played with fast drums and aggressive, vicious vocals is, as typical for Swedish black metal scene, always nice to listen to. It's good that there's always aggression, viciousness and dark, cold atmosphere in the music, only sometimes interrupted by an epic fragment.

So, I listen to "At the Sight of the Apocalypse Dragon" and surprisingly enjoy it more than I expected to. It may be mediocre album, when compared to some of the best Swedish black metal efforts of the late 90's, but it's just nice to listen to.

Standout tracks: "Dödfödd”, “Moonbound”
Verdict: 70/100

Russian imprint Frostscald has a very interesting policy of mixing in some tasteful re-issues alongside their newer, original acts, and the chance to snag up Sweden's Midvinter and issue their underrated classic At the Sight of the Apocalypse Dragon must have been a boon to the budding label. A lot of readers might have an established familiarity with this album, since Metal Blade did a pretty decent licensing of it following its original release through the Black Diamond brand of the tragic Invasion records, responsible for many decent records, some excellent in the late 90s. But ultimately, the band would see numerous releases canceled or kenneled due to label problems, and even the Metal Blade version would not work the wonders the band might have been due.

So the cliche 'better late than never' must certainly apply to this re-issue, which sadly features less appealing packaging, including a similar cover with the band's draconic sigil over the foreground of a nuclear explosion on a landmass, rather than the preferred starscape of the early version. On the other hand, the audio contents and lyrics are all in place, and it's good to get your hands on this if you favor Swedish black metal like Dissection, Marduk and early Mörk Gryning, and have yet to meet the opportunity. Midvinter excel at creating highly atmospheric, cosmic occult riffing with a dense conjecture of melody and sneering vitriol, sauteed in strapping, straight blast beats and sad, epic guitars. For a three piece, this was fairly impressive in its day, with Zathanel's drumming (currently of Blot Mine), Kheeroth's vocals, and Damien Midvinter performing the rest (he's been largely silent outside of Midvinter, with the exception of his work with Jon Nödtveidt of Dissection on the one electronic De Infernali album).

The band were surprisingly good at maintaining a listener's attention despite the rather drawn out compositions. The record is over 60 minutes, with all songs exceeding 8 minutes except the shorter finale "De Vises Hymn", but there is enough juggling of pace and rhythm that one will not quickly become tired of the band's desperate charging and atmospheric departure from the terrestrial sphere, at least not on a song per song basis. The band is best exemplified in a track like "All Things to End Are Made", which opens at a barbaric strut, with cleaner vocal tones, and then excels into a charging break which should appeal to fans of The Somberlain or Far Away from the Sun, or the melodic death metal wave of the mid to late 90s that included At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity, Eucharist and so forth. They can pick up the level of aggression somewhat, as in the screaming furor of "Moonbound" and "Hope Rides on Devil Wings", but the larger portion of material here moves at a glorious bound, focusing in on its most catchy rhythms in later songs like "Dreamslave" and "Ett Liv Förnekat".

There aren't a large number of flaws within the material, but perhaps the band could have been accused of offering too much of the same thing, a complaint leveled at many of their peers at the time (Marduk or Dark Funeral for instance). At the same time, you could actually listen to 2-3 of the songs here and then call it quits until the day arrived upon which you wanted this same sound again. A chunk of the record is just as compelling as its entirety, and I'm not sure a 60+ minute commitment is required. So, to an extent, some monotony does rear its sadistic head, but if you're enamored of melodic Swedish black metal, this would surely be an album you should track down. The lyrics are pretty good, and the level balance of the thicker rhythmic guitar with the endlessly streaming melodies makes for a transfixing experience.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Once you get past the ill-fitting cover art, Midvinter's "At the Sight of the Apocalypse Dragon" shines like a true uncovered gem. This album takes us back to 1997, black metal was on the rise and the second wave had begun to penetrate the metal mainstream. Midvinter is a band that was overlooked during that era. While I personally have read about the band from some forgotten source, I would be lying if I told you I was familiar with the music. Fortunate for us, their one and only album was re-released last year and afford us the opportunity to indulge on their music.

Midvinter plays black metal of the melodic variety, one that is polished yet is able to retain the aggressiveness and intensity of the genre at its rawest. The songs on this album are quite lengthy, only one track clocks in below eight minutes. Yet each track will engage you to listen intently to its urgent, blistering pace powered by icy cold riffs, blasting drums and vocalist Kheeroth's evil shrieks. Standout track for me is "Ett Liv Fornekat" which captures the band in its finest element, the epic arrangements working well with some memorable vocals from Kheeroth.

As I mentioned earlier, it's fortunate that this album was re-released as it allows us listeners who missed out on the band the first time around to discover an overlooked yet excellent album. Frostcald records even changed the original album cover art (the exact same album art later used on Origin's debut). But it's still ill-fitting and unoriginal: it was first used in 2002 by Thor Hammer for their "Fate Worse Than Death" album. Despite this, "At the Sight of the Apocalypse Dragon" is an excellent release which would likely earn repeat spins in your playing rotation. It's a classic album no one heard back in 1997, it's time to discover it in 2010.

I truly cannot believe that this band is mostly unheard of. Midvinter play the type of black metal that often gains massive success among fans of extreme metal.

I feel that it is important for me to point out that while I consider this album to be genuine black metal it is very melodic, and even includes clean vocals on some songs (although these are more akin to those used in epic folk metal bands and the like than the autotuned tones of metalcore and similar things).

The album begins as it means to go on. Ferociously blasting drums pull the listener in as soon as 'Dodfodd' begins. An icy riff sets the scene for a truly epic album. After this some well timed synths come in, heralding the arrival of the first truly incredible melodic riff of the album and the evil vocals of the incredibly talented Keeroth. As the song progresses the melodic riffs continue somewhat in the vein of bands such as 'Old Man's Child'. Dare I say, the first track seems almost progressive in it's use of many changes in a short amount of time.

On the next few tracks Midvinter continue along a very epic and melodic path even including some power metal style clean vocals and a lot of well used synths in their music.

Near the end of the album are the true highlights, 'Ett liv fornekat' with it's hypnotic and ethereal black metal riffs and 'De vises hymn' with it's unsettling and epic almost video-game-soundtrack like atmosphere.

Overall I would particularly recommend this album to anyone and everyone who enjoys black metal and Pagan metal but any metal fan should give it a go as it truly has something for everyone.